Where: NedRink is located next to the Indian Peaks and Caribou Ridge subdivisions in Nederland. From the Nederland traffic circle, head north on Peak to Peak Highway toward Estes Park. Drive up a hill past the Nederland Community Center on your right. After an eighth of a mile, turn left onto Indian Peaks Drive. Continue straight on Indian Peaks Drive (you'll pass School Road) and, just past Shoshoni Way, the paved road turns to dirt. Continue another 200 feet to the park, on your left.

When: NedRink is on holiday hours through Jan. 6. It is open from 2:15 to 7:15 p.m. New Year's Day.

So what makes the Nederland Ice & Racquet Park different, and possibly better, than the rest?

For 14-year-old Fran Churches, it's pretty simple.

"I used to skate there when I was first learning how to play (hockey)," he says. "That was five or six years ago, and I have played on it all the way up until now."

One thing that sets the park apart is the team of scientists and engineers devoted to producing the best quality ice possible.

"How thick should we go, how many layers, what time," says Brian Enke, a scientist with the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder. "It's a physics classroom. Once we think (the temperature) will be in the 20s for at least a week, we'll really get serious about making the ice."

NedRink volunteer Dallas Masters said the ice there is no different than at any other rink. It makes sense -- ice is ice. The difference, Masters says, is the NedRink crew simply tries to use scientific data such as slab temperatures, humidity levels and weather forecasts when they make the ice.

The science involved matters not to some, especially folks who might want to spend, say, New Year's Day skating on an outdoor ice rink. And, if one chooses, doing so under the stars.

"It's always fun," Churches says. "It's fun to play with some of my old friends that I grew up playing with and being outside."

What makes this rink worth the 25-minute drive up Boulder Canyon to Nederland? Well, for one, it just so happens to be the largest outdoor ice rink in Colorado.

Steve Durkee works with a white tarp, which is essential to making the ice at the Nederland Ice & Racquet Park.
(Jeremy Papasso/Daily Camera)

The rink is home to three tennis courts in the warm seasons before it is transformed into an Olympic-sized ice rink in the winter.

Although Nederland owns the Caribou Ranch Open Space where the park is located, the town provides no funding to the park. Thus, the rink's success depends on manager Herb Pugmire and the willpower of the volunteers who help provide a place for recreational skating, youth hockey and curling -- especially the scientists, who help maintain a rink that frequently takes a beating from the high-altitude sun and intense winds.

No, scientists cannot harness the sun or wind. But their knowledge leads to the creation of high-quality ice that will hold up in the winter's harsh conditions.

"None of us have a background in ice making," Masters says. "We just happen to be a group of scientists and engineers."

Enke even spilled one of the secrets to the crew's strategy.

"Thin layers," he says. "The secret is to build in layers because the base slab needs to stay frozen. There's not much heat transfer between the slab and the water ... it stays frozen that way. All heat is going up, and ice is an amazing insulator."

The wired sensors, or thermocouples, tell you the temperature when a layer of

ice is down. This is critical, the "X factor" if you will, because each slab needs to be the right temperature before the next is added.

That is the most difficult task of transforming tennis courts into an ice rink, Masters says.

"We put thermocouples in certain places to know when the conditions are right to make ice that will last a whole season," he says.

Adds Enke: "Our slabs fight ground temperature. It makes the entire season much more manageable if we make that first base slab really good."

All along, though, the NedRink scientists and engineers must factor in albedo, the fraction of solar energy reflected from the Earth back into space. The higher the albedo, the more energy that's reflected, which means there is less energy absorption to melt the ice.

"The ice requires a white background, so we cover the tennis courts with large, plastic sheets," Masters says. "Moving these into place and holding them down against the wind with initial layers of ice is by far the most difficult part of the whole process."

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